Privacy Policy

Last updated: 5 November 2026

chip-in is a new way for groups to decide, organise and pay for plans. This policy explains what personal information we collect and how we use it when you visit chip-in.ai, join our waitlist, or take part in our beta test. It is written for our testing phase, and we will update it before public launch.

1. Who we are

chip-in is run by Chip-In.AI Limited ("chip-in", "we", "us"), a company registered in England and Wales with company number 16573404. Our registered office is The Foundry, Blackfriars Road, London, England, SE1 8EN. We are the "controller" of the personal information described in this policy. You can contact us at hello@trychipin.com.

2. Who this policy covers

• Visitors and waitlist members who use chip-in.ai or ask to join the waitlist.
• Beta testers who create an account, including people who organise a plan ("organisers").
• Participants, meaning people an organiser invites into a plan, who may not have signed up to chip-in themselves.

3. What information we collect

• Waitlist information: your first name, last name and email address, and what you would plan first, if you tell us.
• Account information: your name, email address and password, and the sign-in method you use (Apple, Google or email). Passwords are stored only as one-way hashes, never as readable text, and signing in with Apple or Google stores no password. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive your name and email address from them. If you are an organiser, we also ask for your WhatsApp number. It is shown in the first WhatsApp message so participants can recognise you.
• Profile photo: if you sign up with Google, we keep the profile photo Google shares. You can change it to a photo from your library, or remove it. Only you see your photo. It is never sent to participants, and it is deleted with your account. Apple and email sign-ups start with no photo.
• Contacts, only if you allow it: organisers add participants in three ways: people they have planned with before, their phone contacts, or by typing a first name and number. Your phone asks for contacts permission only when you choose "Allow access to contacts". We keep only the name and number of each person you pick, and nothing else from your phone. The people you pick are saved so they appear under "Participants you've planned with" in your next plan. This list is kept until you delete your account, and is deleted with it. Names come only from the organiser. We never take names or profile pictures from WhatsApp.
• Plan information: the details of a group plan, such as the name, dates, availability, who is taking part, tasks and checklists, and links the group shares. We do not open or read links people share. We also keep each person's replies, votes and preferences, and short summaries of what people said.
• Messages: the conversations between you and chip-in, in the app or in WhatsApp, whether you are an organiser or a participant. This includes what you send us and what chip-in sends you, such as invitations, nudges and plan updates.
• Payment links and status: chip-in does not process payments. If you or someone in your plan shares a payment link (for example from your bank or a payment app), we handle the link as part of the message. We may also record whether someone has said they have paid. We do not receive or store card or bank details.
• Feedback: anything you tell us about how chip-in works.
• Technical information: your IP address, device and browser type, and usage information, recorded automatically when you use the site or app. For organisers, this includes the device identifier we need to send push notifications. Push notifications go to organisers only, and say only that something happened, never what anyone said. Participants get no chip-in notifications, only normal WhatsApp ones. The app also sends crash and error reports (see section 12). We count the WhatsApp messages and AI requests each event uses, to run the service. This is internal and is not shared.

chip-in does not collect gender or any special category data (such as health or religion).

If you are a participant, we usually receive your name and phone number from the organiser who invited you, rather than from you directly. The first message you receive from chip-in comes through WhatsApp and shows the organiser's name and phone number. Organisers must only add people who would reasonably expect to be included.

4. How and why we use it

• To provide the beta test, including creating accounts, running plans, sending messages and nudges, suggesting dates, and tracking who has paid. Our lawful basis is that this is necessary to perform our agreement with you (our Terms & Conditions). For participants who have not signed up, it is our legitimate interest in running the plan the organiser has asked us to help with.
• To message participants on an organiser's behalf, with invitations, nudges (up to two per person for each decision) and plan updates. The organiser approves every message chip-in sends to the group. In each participant's private chat, chip-in replies directly. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in running the plan the organiser has asked for.
• To keep you updated about testing and launch, if you are on the waitlist. Our lawful basis is your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
• To improve chip-in, by understanding what works and what does not, and by learning from your feedback. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in developing a better product.
• To keep chip-in safe and secure, and to prevent fraud and abuse. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest, and in some cases a legal obligation.
• To reply to you when you contact us, and to meet our legal duties.

We use an organiser's WhatsApp number so chip-in knows who they are when it chats with their group. We will not use it for marketing or spam. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for advertising.

5. How we use AI

chip-in uses artificial intelligence to help organise plans, for example by suggesting dates and drafting messages. To do this, relevant messages and plan information are sent to our AI provider, which processes them on our behalf. We use Anthropic's Claude models. Requests go through Vercel AI Gateway and are served either by Anthropic directly or by the same Claude models on Amazon Web Services (AWS Bedrock). No other AI company receives your information.

Neither Anthropic nor Amazon Web Services trains models on data sent through their business services, and we do not allow our AI provider to use your information to train its models. Vercel states that its AI Gateway does not log the prompts or responses, and that the content is deleted once the request completes. It keeps only metadata: the model, token usage, cost, duration and status, with routing details kept for 30 days. Our system sends requests only to Anthropic or Amazon Bedrock.

chip-in does not make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects. The organiser approves every message chip-in sends to the group, and makes the final decisions. In each participant's private chat, chip-in replies directly. Summaries of what participants said are shown only to the organiser.

6. Messages are deleted 15 days after the event closes

We delete the contents of messages 15 days after the event is closed, not 15 days after each message is sent. While an event is open, chip-in needs the conversation to keep it working. This covers every conversation in the event: the organiser's chats with chip-in in the app, and every participant's WhatsApp chat. Deletion happens automatically.

Please note:

• Deleting message contents does not delete everything that came from them. We keep the outcome of the plan so it continues to work, as listed in section 9.
• chip-in's own logs do not record message contents. Copies sent to our AI provider are processed to produce a reply.
• Our backups are taken daily and kept for 7 days, so message contents may remain in a backup for up to 7 days after they leave our live database.
• Messages also exist outside our systems. WhatsApp and Meta handle messages sent through WhatsApp under their own policies, and your own phone keeps your chat history until you delete it.

7. Who we share it with

We share information only with providers who help us run chip-in, and only as far as they need it. They act on our instructions. For the chip-in app:

• Meta (WhatsApp Business): chip-in works through WhatsApp, so messages pass through Meta's platform.
• Apple and Google: if you sign in with them, and to deliver push notifications to your phone.
• Supabase: holds our database and the sign-in accounts. It is set to London.
• Vercel: runs the chip-in server, set to London, and provides the AI Gateway that routes AI requests.
• Anthropic and Amazon Web Services: our AI providers, as described in section 5.
• Resend: sends the 6-digit codes for sign-up and password reset, and the email that confirms an account deletion. chip-in sends no other emails in the beta: no marketing and no notification emails.
• Sentry: receives crash and error reports from the app, so we can fix problems.

For this website and the waitlist:

• Netlify: hosts this website and stores waitlist form submissions.
• Google Workspace: our email service, which we use to send waitlist emails and to receive messages sent to us.
• Google Fonts: when you load this site, your browser requests fonts from Google, which receives your IP address.

Other people in your plan: organisers never see your messages. They see a summary of what each person wants, with names, and how each person voted. chip-in does not quote you word for word. Participants see the plan, the options and the decisions, but never another person's messages, who suggested an option, who voted for what, or vote counts.

We may also share information if the law requires it, to protect our rights or safety, or in connection with a sale or restructuring of our business, in which case we will tell you.

8. Transfers outside the UK

Some of our service providers, and the people who build and support chip-in, are outside the UK, including in the United States. When your information is accessed or stored outside the UK, we use safeguards approved under UK law, such as the UK's international data transfer agreements.

9. How long we keep it

• Message contents: deleted 15 days after the event closes, including any payment links shared in them.
• Waitlist information: until you ask us to remove you, or 12 months after chip-in launches, whichever comes first.
• Account information and plan information: until you delete your account (see the next section). We do not remove inactive accounts automatically in the beta. What stays after message contents are deleted, until the organiser deletes their account:
  • the event, its decisions and what was decided;
  • each participant's name, number, and whether they replied;
  • the summary chip-in writes for the organiser, with positions attributed by name and never quoted word for word;
  • poll options and each participant's votes, which only the organiser sees;
  • questions participants asked and the organiser's answers;
  • links participants shared, which chip-in never opens; and
  • a record of each nudge: who, which decision, and when.
• Feedback: we may keep feedback in a form that does not identify you.
• Technical logs: kept for a short period, as set by our hosting providers.

10. Deleting your account

You can ask us to delete your account at any time, in the app from the Account menu, or by emailing hello@trychipin.com. Within 30 days, the chip-in team will delete your account, every event you created, the participants in those events and everything they said in them, your saved participants, and the record of which terms version you accepted. We will email you once when it is done.

If a participant is also in another organiser's event, they keep that other event. Only your events are removed. This cannot be undone.

After deletion we keep a record that a request was completed, with only the request date and the completion date, and no name or email address. Our team inbox also keeps the request email, which contains your sign-in email address and account ID, and the team’s notes on the steps taken. We keep these for 12 months, then delete them. The confirmation email goes to you, and we keep only the date it was sent.

If you are a participant, you can ask to be removed by telling chip-in in WhatsApp that you want to stop (for example by replying "STOP"), by emailing hello@trychipin.com, or by asking the organiser to remove you. We will then stop messaging you about that event. When an organiser removes someone, chip-in sends a short pre-approved notice and stops messaging that person about that event.

11. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask us to:

• tell you what information we hold about you and give you a copy;
• correct anything that is wrong;
• delete your information;
• restrict or object to how we use it;
• give you your information in a portable format; and
• stop contacting you. You can withdraw your consent at any time.

To use these rights, email hello@trychipin.com. We will reply within one month. If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We would appreciate the chance to put things right first.

12. Cookies, crash reports and tracking

At the moment this website does not use advertising or analytics cookies. If that changes, we will update this page and ask for your consent where the law requires it.

The chip-in app sends crash and error reports, so we can find and fix problems. The beta has no advertising, no tracking across other apps, and no analytics dashboards.

13. Security

We use reputable providers, encrypt information in transit and at rest, and limit who can access personal information. All connections are encrypted, and our database refuses any connection that is not. Passwords are stored only as one-way hashes. No online service can promise perfect security. If a breach puts your rights at risk, we will tell you and the ICO as the law requires.

14. Age

chip-in is for adults. You must be 18 or over to join the waitlist or use the beta, and we ask you to confirm this when you sign up.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy, especially as we move from testing to launch. We will change the date at the top, and tell you about important changes by email or in the app.